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Not talking about major cities like LA, NYC, Chicago, SF or Dallas but small cities or towns.
It could be fiction or nonfiction. I'm just wondering if the stories stay true to your location that is, if fiction, it sounds like your town and the people in it. If nonfiction, did you think you knew more than the author or the author didn't capture the place correctly?
Location: Montreal -> CT -> MA -> Montreal -> Ottawa
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It's so funny that you should ask that. I'm originally from Montreal and there are a few (not many, but some) books that take place there. I thought it would be neat to have walked the streets that were mentioned, gone to the restaurants that were referenced, etc... but, it's strange -- I didn't like it all. I don't quite know why. I think it felt like it couldn't be a "real" story if it took place in my piddly hometown. (Good that I don't live in NYC, in that case -- I'd have nothing to read!)
Sorry that I didn't answer your questions but I don't remember if they stayed true to the city or captured it correctly.
Laguna Beach is the setting of many books and a very inane TV show. Orange County also has a show with its name. Neither is true to the location or the local lifestyle.
William Kent Krueger writes really good (although very violent) mysteries/thrillers that are set in my area. In fact he named the main community in the books Aurora, and there is a real town named Aurora which isn't anything like the place he writes about. Krueger lives in the Twin Cities area of MN and his interpretation of our region is pretty typical for a city dweller - eg simultaneously idealized and demeaning. I do recommend his books, though!
I guess I'm from a fairly large town - St. Louis, MO - but it's not too interesting of a town so there aren't too many books set there. One memoir set in good ol' StL is King of the Hill by A.E. Hotchner, who incidentally was a very good friend of Paul Newman and co-founded the Newman's Own line of products with him. A wonderful and poignant book of Hotchner growing up in the depression, it was made into a movie in 1993. The movie was directed by Steven Soderbergh, after Sex, Lies and Videotape but before he really took off as a director, and starred Jesse Bradford, Adrien Brody (in his first major role), Karen Allen, Katherine Heigl, Spalding Gray and Elizabeth McGovern, among others. Anyway, I guess I have strong memories of this book and movie because my mom, brother and I were extras in the movie. And it was a great movie. It's available on netflix instant stream, if anyone is interested.
Not talking about major cities like LA, NYC, Chicago, SF or Dallas but small cities or towns.
It could be fiction or nonfiction. I'm just wondering if the stories stay true to your location that is, if fiction, it sounds like your town and the people in it. If nonfiction, did you think you knew more than the author or the author didn't capture the place correctly?
John Gardner set The Sunlight Dialogues in Batavia, NY, and I grew up in a neighboring village. Gardner was born in Batavia.
I found the book very confusing to follow at the time I tried to read it, and eventually abandoned it unfinished. Thus, that reaction has really trumped any other memories I have of the book.
On the other hand, I have read - and still have - Coming of Age in Buffalo by William Groebner. It is a very detailed, well illustrated non-fiction book about teenage life in Buffalo in the Fifties. Those were my teenage years, and I visited Buffalo frequently because most of my father's family lived there, and though we lived forty miles outside Buffalo it was a major cultural influence due to having one of the first megawatt rock n roll radio stations in the U.S., and its daily evening paper was our family newspaper.
I love the book because while it focuses on urban Buffalo, so much of what it is about was shared by me as a result of living so close. And I find it an accurate account.
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And it was a great movie. It's available on netflix instant stream, if anyone is interested.
